Great Story about me in the Detroit Free Press. Maybe.

Who was that jorts-wearing man?

Chivalrous stranger prompts new attitude

by Georgea Kovanis

It rained buckets.

The wind roared, the thunder rumbled, the lightning crackled.

And I arrived home to find a couple of ginormous tree limbs stretched across my front yard, driveway and into the yard of my next-door neighbor. If I’d been home and had parked my car in the driveway as usual, it would’ve been crushed. If I’d been home, parked and was sitting in my car, I would’ve been crushed, too.

Anyway, as soon as the rain stopped, several neighbors gathered in my yard to survey the damage. One brought over his chainsaw and went to work. But the saw pooped out before he could cut through the enormous branch. So we all tromped over to his yard to check out his new patio tent, which, despite being staked into the ground, had been blown over by the storm.

Circumstances aside, it was a pleasant gathering. And I got a chance to tell the lady across the street that the times I’ve been on my front porch, talking loudly and saying things such as, “Henry, you’re such a nice big boy” and “Come here, my handsome Henry,” I was talking to my cat. Not to her husband, whose name, I have since discovered, is Henry.

Then, suddenly from my yard: The unmistakable buzz of a chainsaw. I walked over to investigate. And that’s when I saw him: A jorts-clad stranger sawing through the fallen tree limbs.

He worked with laser-like focus, apparently unbothered by the rain, which had started again. I was soaked, too, but figured I should stand nearby and offer moral support. “Be careful!” I said. He said nothing. When he was done, I thanked him. And then, chainsaw in hand, he walked down the block, disappearing like a superhero –Jortsman! — into the rainy night.

Jeans cool, jorts silly

I tell you all this for a reason.

I have a longtime distaste for jorts, those jeans shorts too many men insist on wearing. Jeans are an American classic. Messing with them, as a fashion expert once told me, is like messing with the American flag. Not cool. Plus, jeans shorts on men look silly — they’re either too tight or too baggy. But it took dating a jorts-wearing man to turn my dislike into disgust. Our relationship did not end well.

So much of what we buy and wear — or choose not to wear — and keep and covet and appreciate is tied up in our memories. And associations. And emotions.

Carol Hansz of Plymouth knows just what I mean.

She’ll never again wear the slinky white evening dress with ruching and an iridescent front panel that hangs in her closet. She’ll never again wear the white jacket with faux fur hood that’s in storage in her basement. But she keeps both — “I swear, I’m not a hoarder!” — because they represent special times in her life.

She wore the dress on a cruise with her husband in 1997, a year after giving birth to their daughter. She’d worked hard to lose her pregnancy weight and, she says, “felt so glamorous and fancy, going out in an evening dress for the captain’s dinner.”

She wore the jacket when she went to the hospital in 1993 to give birth to her son.

“You don’t want to part with that feeling you had when you were wearing that particular item,” she says.

For her, it’s all about happy memories.

All sorts in jorts

For the longest time, I’ve associated jeans shorts with bad memories; that jorts-wearing ex dumped me because he decided I was too fat.

I have hated them ever since.

But lately, I’ve been softening, mellowing. Before I sat down to write this, I caught myself telling a coworker that not all jorts are bad.

And it’s all because a chainsaw-wielding, jorts-clad stranger saved the day.

Ok, maybe it was not REALLY me, but jorts cannot be all that bad. Have a great Monday!